Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield is a 2003 tactical first-person shooter video game developed by Red Storm Entertainment and published by Ubi Soft for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. It is the third entry in the Rainbow Six series. The game's plot follows Rainbow, a secret international counterterrorist organization, as they respond to a wave of terrorist attacks threatening South America.
Based on Unreal Engine 2, Raven Shield is a tactical shooter with realistic properties. Raven Shield moved toward mainstream first-person shooters like Counter-Strike, adapting various features absent in previous versions. These included the ability to see one's weapon while in the first-person view, new weapons and upgrades, and a revamped multiplayer.
A console version, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3, was developed and published by Ubisoft for the Xbox, PlayStation 2, and GameCube. This iteration of the game features the same basic engine, models, textures, and artwork, but with significantly different game mechanics, gameplay, and storyline.
Due to the console version's success on the Xbox and the popularity of Xbox Live, an Xbox-exclusive semi-sequel was released in 2004 titled Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3: Black Arrow. The next full game in the Rainbow Six series, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Lockdown, was released in 2005.
Windows and Mac
Plot
In 1945, two Ustaše members escape the Independent State of Croatia with Holocaust loot, leaving documents relating to it in a Croatian bank. Sixty years later, in 2005, a group of assailants enter the bank overnight, kill its occupants, and destroy the documents.Meanwhile, Rainbow, led by John Clark and advised by Kevin Sweeney, responds to a series of neo-fascist terrorist attacks targeting South American oil interests and European financial institutions. They are soon deployed to intervene in shootouts in the Cayman Islands between drug smugglers and the Cayman Islands Police Force, including one at the mansion of Croatian billionaire Nikola Gospić, who claims the smugglers broke in.
Rainbow's suspicions arise after a series of raids and terrorist attacks on locations across South America connected to Gospić and the smugglers, including an unusually violent attack on a meat-packing facility in Argentina which Gospić owns a minority stake in, and a raid on an import-export company in Brazil storing chemical weapons components. Rainbow finds a link between Gospić and far-right Argentine presidential candidate Alvaro Gutierrez, who is himself tied to an earlier attack on a Swiss bank. After killing a British Neo-Nazi with ties to Gospić and Gutierrez during a hostage situation, and stopping the contamination of meat at the meat-packing facility with VX, Rainbow deduces Gospić is stockpiling chemical weapons and raids the meat-packing facility and his mansion.
Rainbow learns that Gospić is an escaped Ustaše official, one of the two men in the opening cutscene. Dying of liver cancer, Gospić intends to use his vast wealth to resurrect global fascism before he dies: by buying South American oil fields and killing swaths of people across the continent, he would spark an economic crisis, then use his oil profits to raise an international fascist movement and form Greater Croatia under fascist rule. To bring about the crisis, he plans to attack Festa Junina celebrations in Rio de Janeiro with blister gas. Rainbow assaults a garage where Gospić is preparing a parade float filled with blister gas, killing Gospić and preventing the attack. Gutierrez is promptly arrested, and he admits everything to Clark in interrogation.
Expansions
''Athena Sword''
Athena Sword is the first expansion for the PC version of Raven Shield. Athena Sword builds upon the original by adding eight new missions, five new multiplayer maps, three new multiplayer game modes, and seven new weapons. Athena Sword was developed by Ubisoft Milan and released on March 9, 2004. A Mac port was released on November 23, 2004. Athena Sword was packaged with the original game as Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3 Gold Edition in 2004.Plot
In 2007, a few months after defeating Gospić and imprisoning Gutierrez, Rainbow responds to a series of consecutive terrorist attacks in Italy. Rainbow learns they possess chemical weapons and that they are followers of Gutierrez; when questioned, Gutierrez promises a "surprise", suggesting his complicity. Rainbow finds an informant in arms dealer Giovanni Bagattini, and rescues him from several attempts on his life. The terrorists raid a warehouse where the Polizia di Stato have stored their confiscated chemical gas; Rainbow repels them, but finds the terrorists have stolen a barrel, which they intend to use for Gutierrez's "surprise". Rainbow tracks the terrorists to Athens, Greece, and prevents them from releasing the gas in an agora. In the aftermath, Gutierrez is delivered a newspaper reporting the terrorists' defeat; two days later, he hangs himself in his cell.''Iron Wrath''
Iron Wrath is the second expansion for the PC version of Raven Shield. It was in production for almost 2 years before Ubisoft decided to release it as a free download for FilePlanet subscribers on June 9, 2005. Developed by Ubisoft Casablanca, this expansion features a 7-mission campaign in which Rainbow neutralizes a terrorist nuclear bomb threat, 3 classic missions, 8 new multiplayer maps, 6 new weapons, and 5 new multiplayer game modes. In October 2008, the CD-key activation server was taken offline, suspending the multiplayer features of Iron Wrath. This free expansion remains available on the web site ModDB.''Gold Edition'' and ''Complete''
Rainbow Six 3: Gold Edition and Rainbow Six 3: Complete are compilation sets that both consist of Raven Shield and Athena Sword, with Complete also including Iron Wrath.Development
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield was developed for Microsoft Windows from around November, 2000, to February, 13, 2003, which it was finished as the development neared completion, and through a collaboration between Ubisoft and Red Storm Entertainment, including Ubisoft's other studio, Montreal and Milan, after their acquisition in August, 30, 2000. The development team consisted around 50 people, who built the game in the latest Unreal Engine. Tom Clancy had veto power with every project that beared his name including Rainbow Six and would demand changes through an intermediary if he found it necessary.Console versions
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3 was initially ported to Microsoft's Xbox console to take advantage of the Xbox Live online functionality. The Xbox version was developed by Ubisoft Montreal. The game was later ported to the PlayStation 2 and GameCube in early 2004 by developer Ubisoft Shanghai. The GameCube version is limited to two players for local multiplayer. Although both games are titled Rainbow Six 3, this version is not subtitled Raven Shield and contains somewhat different content. For instance, the multiplayer maps in the console and PC versions are different, with some appearing only in the console versions, others in the PC version.The Xbox version of the game features downloadable content in the form of additional levels for users with access to the Xbox Live service. All of the expansion levels are intended for use in the online multiplayer mode. Xbox Live for the original Xbox shut down on April 15, 2010, but Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3 is playable online on the replacement online servers for the Xbox called Insignia
Gameplay
The gameplay in the console version of Rainbow Six 3 deviates from its PC counterpart in a number of important areas, notably the exclusion of a mission planning stage and the inability to control multiple characters. Instead, players take the role of Rainbow field commander Domingo Chavez and lead a single fireteam consisting of Eddie Price, Louis Loiselle, and Dieter Weber through each of the game's missions. Orders can be issued to the teammates using either an in-game menu or through voice-commands via the Xbox Live headset. This, however, suffered from slight misunderstandings between similar phrases such as "open frag and clear" and "open flash and clear", and vice versa. To compensate for the decreased control players have over their squad, the squad AI has been improved, with squadmates being able to automatically duck behind objects or assume covering positions within an area. Each teammate has their own unique voice as opposed to generic voices in the PC version.The action is also slightly more forgiving in the console version. Chavez and his teammates each have a health bar consisting of four units of health. In the console versions, it is possible for the player to sustain several bullet hits before dying.
Plot
In 2007, a Rainbow team commanded by Domingo Chavez responds to a series of terrorist attacks with the same demands: an end to Venezuelan oil exports to the United States. Though they initially target the oil industry and PDVSA, the attacks soon shift to target Venezuelan presidential candidate Juan Crespo. Meanwhile, suspicions mount that Saudi Arabia is responsible for the attacks, which Clark fears could escalate into a war.Chavez's team extracts Nusrat Ahmad, an informant who infiltrated multiple terrorist networks; Ahmad informs Clark that Emilio Vargas, Crespo's right-hand man, played a role in an earlier break-in in Boston where financial records relating to the terrorist attacks were stolen from a vault. After Chavez's team rescues Crespo from an attack while touring Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, Rainbow learns Vargas is connected to Middle Eastern terrorists. Chavez's team raids an import-export firm owned by Vargas, and Chavez sneaks into Vargas' Caracas penthouse to gather intel, from which they learn Vargas possesses VX.
Rainbow manages to seize VX from a meat-packing facility, and tracks down additional VX—along with Vargas himself—to a garage in New Orleans. Clark interrogates Vargas, who reveals Crespo is ordering the attacks to rally support for his campaign; upon being elected President of Venezuela, Crespo would engineer an oil crisis to sell oil on the black market at high prices for his own gain. Rainbow also learns Crespo plans to orchestrate terrorist attacks against the U.S. with a Saudi dissident, allowing the dissident to take control of Saudi Arabia after American military intervention. With an impending attack targeting Mardi Gras celebrations, Chavez's team deploys to New Orleans, locating and defusing a VX-loaded bomb.
With the attack prevented and his plans foiled, Crespo attempts to flee Venezuela with his remaining VX canisters. Rainbow intercepts Crespo at Simón Bolívar International Airport and Chavez assassinates him before he can escape. With the threat subsided, Clark congratulates Chavez and his team, and Rainbow frames the terrorists for the assassination.